Jim Jordan is the Presiding Judge of the 160th Judicial District and presently serves as the Local Administrative District Judge for 39 Dallas County District Court Judges.
Judge Jim Jordan comes from a family tradition of hard work and civic involvement. His parents both moved to Texas from Monroe, Louisiana. Jim’s father, James Henry Jordan, was the first in the family to earn a college degree — an electrical engineering degree from Louisiana State University — and was a naval aviator in World War II. Jim’s paternal grandfather, Henry Jordan worked in the paper mill near the family home in West Monroe. Jim’s maternal grandfather Ralph Gibson worked on a barge on the Mississippi River near Vicksburg, Mississippi.
His mother, Imogene Gibson worked for several telephone companies, beginning with Southern Bell in 1946 and retiring in Dallas in 1992 with Southwestern Bell. She began as a “number please, thank you” local operator and ended as a T-Carrier Technician. She is a life long member of the Communication Workers of America.
Jim Jordan is the oldest of three sons — all the product of public schools. His brother Mark also earned a law degree but now works as Manager of Reservoir Operations for the Lower Colorado River Authority. He lives in Austin with his wife, Robbi. His brother Bill works for NASA and lives in Houston with his wife, Lisa. Bill and Lisa just returned from Japan where Bill served as Attaché for the United States Embassy as the NASA Japan Representative.
Judge Jordan graduated from South Garland High School where he was active in the marching band. As he began college at Austin College in Sherman, Jim’s father’s job was transferred, and the rest of the family moved to Virginia. Jim worked his way through college as a bus driver for Denison schools and in the summer as a laborer for a warehouse moving and storage company, loading and unloading furniture from eighteen-wheelers.
When Jim was 21, his father died abruptly from cancer. Jordan took a semester off from college to travel to Virginia and help his mother move the family back home to Texas. Despite missing a semester of school to care for his family, Jordan graduated from Austin College on time in 1974.
During the early years of his legal practice, Jim met his future wife, Roberta, who worked for an attorney one floor up from his office in the Katy Building across from the Dallas County Courthouse. Roberta Ragan was also from the Dallas area, having graduated from Sunset High School and earned her undergraduate degree from what was then North Texas State University, now the University of North Texas. They married in 1981. They have two grown children, Natalie and Austin.
Judge Jordan has been active in scouting since he was a boy. Jim is an Eagle Scout, worked summers as a scout camp counselor, and became a Vigil Honor member of the Order of the Arrow. His son, Austin, has continued the family tradition by also earning the rank of Eagle Scout. Judge Jordan served as an Assistant Scout Master and camp counselor, accompanying his son to adventure camping in Big Bend and to the National Jamboree in Northern Virginia and in Washington D.C.
Austin is a 2008 graduate of the University of Southern California where he was a drum line officer in the Trojan marching band, performing in the Rose Bowl Parade three of the last four year. Jim’s daughter Natalie is a graduate of the University of Texas Radio-Television-Film program. She currently works for a small production company in Dallas. Natalie recently won the State Bar of Texas’ “Texas on Justice” video contest. She is working on a documentary of her father’s race for the Supreme Court.
Jim’s mother remarried after his father’s death, becoming Imogene Gibson Stroope. She is now 80, lives in Dallas, and can hardly wait to vote for her son for Chief Justice, Supreme Court of Texas.
